Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Our Farmhouse

So... here is our farmhouse. We (Karl and I) bought it 4 June 2009 and have been renovating it since Nov. 2009. Hopefully this will be a diary of our renovations. All comments are welcome.

The house is located in the town of Floyd, VA. The town of Floyd is famous for its Friday Night Jamboree, which is a part of the Crooked Road music legacy. The town is situated off the Blue Ridge Parkway, about an hour southeast of Roanoke, VA. The town is also famous for its Floydfest, which is a world renown music festival. This place is a little piece of heaven on earth. And... we found our own little piece of the heaven: Our farmhouse.

The house is listed as having been built in 1919, with the original house and materials being from 1856. We are the 4th owners of the house. When we purchased it, it had 3 bedrooms upstairs, a room over the porch (will one day be my studio), a bedroom on the lower level, kitchen, living room, sun room, storage room, bathroom and a front and back porch.

We are not only renovating the house, but also restoring it. We have torn down walls in order to make the living space flow better, redone the fireplaces, rewired and insulated, but otherwise we are trying to keep to the originality of the house. Additionally, we are recycling all materials and no dry wall will be put into the house.

5 June 2009: We spent the 1st full day of ownership removing over 65,000 honey bees from an upstairs bedroom (The previous owner was unable to go up the stairs, and had basically closed the upper part of the house off.). We didn't want to harm the bees, so we called in the New River Valley Beekeepers and they showed up early. The day before had been stormy with torrential rains, so our driveway had washed out. However, they were able to come in and remove the bees without too much ado. Additionally, the Roanoke Times did a 4-page spread on our bee removal project.

SO... this was how our 1st days of Farmhouse Ownership transpired. Yummy Honey!!!